The role of the College of the City of New York (CCNY) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is described, particularly with regard to early Jewish immigrants. It is suggested that the myth of the "easy marriage" of Jewish values and American opportunities ignores the variety of Jewish culture and the drama of the vast social and political processes that made Jewish social mobility possible. It is shown that at the time of the first wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants to the United States in 1881, education was not the ladder to success; that colleges were firmly in the grip of theologians who decreed a classical, Christian curriculum. The possibility through education arose only as these immigrants were driven into militant social and labor movements by their living and working conditions. The social conflict so alarmed the business community that the reform of educational institutions was begun and new occupations created to defuse radicalism and promote Americanization. The creation of CCNY, its rise and reform, the creation of occupational opportunity, and the schooling of the Jewish poor are discussed in separate chapters, as is the CCNY curriculum in an age of cultural conflict. Extensive notes, a bibliography, and a subject index are provided. (LB)